In choosing a Cybersecurity Incident Response Service, organizations should look for vendors that offer a long-tail approach. The latest report by The Forrester Wave™: Cybersecurity Incident Response Services suggests that CIRS should lead the planning and preparation as well as the recovery and restoration of the client’s business reputation should damage from an incident occur.

Responding to an increasing wave of attacks

With ransomware attackers becoming more prolific and destructive in recent months, companies found themselves ill-prepared, resorting to paying millions in ransom. In fact, 2021 saw a 100% increase in incidents compared to 2020 levels, according to the report. Not to mention the barrage of high-profile breaches which resulted in wide-scale financial and reputational damage.

While the framework for investigating and responding to threats has not changed, the study recommends that providers must offer more to support customers. CIRS should upgrade their service offering to address the devastating impact of attacks across the vast ecosystem of business functions. 

Beyond providing technologies and skills in digital forensics and incident response, CIRS should offer the following service must-haves in order to be competitive –

1. Provides on-going preparation and insured protection 

The reality is that cybersecurity incidents are no longer a matter of “if” but “when”. Companies should brace themselves for impact because a single incident could harm more than just their finances and operations. It could potentially destroy their brand and reputation with staff, customers and shareholders, long into the future. 

Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are particularly vulnerable to ransomware attacks because they do not have the dedicated security teams or security tools of larger enterprises. Their IT resources are typically focused on running the business and not on security.

Though defending against a security incident may be challenging for businesses of any size – it’s not impossible. A reputable CIRS can demonstrate a clear plan for preparing, responding and insuring against incidents. By connecting the business with the right insurance carriers, the CIRS provider should be able to provide the pathway to a swift recovery. 

Completing readiness assessments in the underwriting process is just one of the more helpful features of a comprehensive CIRS service offering. An ongoing security posture monitoring data delivered to both brokers and carriers could be included in the service level agreement for good measure. This is to determine premiums and coverage levels during policy renewal.

2. Demonstrates a deep understanding of legal and regulatory compliance

Successful governance, risk management, and compliance require a holistic and in-depth understanding of the company’s IT environment, industry, and the unique threats it faces. Assessing the existing infrastructure and its vulnerabilities will help companies map out the ideal practices, policies, and procedures that need to be implemented to establish a strong overall security posture.

When managing GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance), CIRS will have to lead the cooperation of every member of the organization. By enabling accountability at all levels, from interns to C-level executives, compliance and security will become part of the work culture and keep risk under control from every front.

CIRS should assess and facilitate operational maturity by providing a clear roadmap that details the ideal security posture. By laying out the organization’s unique vulnerabilities, CIRS can help establish the technology, practices, policies, and procedures to secure the infrastructure and its applications.

Managed security services and risk management interface, provide CIRS an in-depth visibility of security controls, events, and levels of service. With radical transparency of the entire ecosystem, businesses will easily meet compliance requirements and immediately remediate any issues.

3. Supports post-incident and long-term recovery

At best, CIRS can do more than initiate incident response actions. It can, and should, help to rebuild trust with customers, employees, partners, insurers and regulators. This can be done with security and environment recovery experts leading the communication effort in customer support channels. 

Many CIRS providers offer ongoing training and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services to ensure the attacker doesn’t regain entry. Other firms may assist with strategic planning to improve the overall security posture. The bottomline is, a capable CIRS provider should be able to support your reputational recovery needs and solve security gaps in the long-term.

Always secure, always updated, always compliant

With UDT’s EndPoint Solutions, you gain asset visibility to keep track of every EndPoint and guarantee they are always patched, updated, and optimally protected. With experience working with numerous industries in the private and public sector, along with our capabilities in IT security, we deliver an end-to-end service that ensures your security configurations are always compliant and up-to-speed.